Boats, or watercraft, come in many sizes. Frequently it becomes necessary to secure the boat to a dock. The procedure can create a danger for the boat and personnel. The boat can collide with the dock causing damage to the boat and/or the dock.
Bumper rolls have been developed to act as shock absorbers to protect the boat and the dock during the docking maneuver. One such arrangement is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,048,446. In this patent the bumper is referred to as a fender. The fender is secured by straps and a strap member secures the fender to a post in or on the boat. The strap member has no self-sustaining rigidity and is foldable so that the secured fender is movable relative to the boat hull. Accordingly, movement of the fender is possible even after it is secured to the post in or on the boat.
The problem that arises with this arrangement is that the driver of the boat cannot always be certain of the location of the fender during the docking procedure since the fender is free to being displaced, for example, by poor driving or even wave motion on the boat. The use of fenders such as shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,048,446 patent is common and effective when the fender is located to absorb the impact with the dock, but clearly useless for this purpose when it does not.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,697,316, the problem of fender displacement is less of a problem because the bumper comprises a plate attached to the boat hull by suction cups. The fender comprises one or more strips of padding secured to the plate. The forces created by impact with a dock must first be reacted by the plate and from the plate to the padded strips. The rigidity of the plate can dislodge the suction cups because the plates are stiff and the impact load spreads throughout the plate. Even though there are strips of padding these strips will not absorb all the impact load because they are secondary force reactors with the primary force reactor being the plate.
What is needed is a bumper assembly where soft rolls are used such as the bumper fender of the U.S. Pat. No. 5,048,446 patent, but arranged so that they are fixed such that the soft roll is the primary force absorber. The present invention provides such an assembly.